Of Mothers and Sons
by Karussell
Summary: Of Mothers and Sons "What is a badgermole doing in my kitchen?" AU
1. katara and roku

_1\. katara and roku_

The boy stood before her, his face rubbed red, his dark blue eyes burning, a bag slung over his shoulder, and his lip was trembling a little, but he still met her gaze unflinchingly.

He reminded her of both his father and aunt a lot right this moment.

Lu Ten babbled nonsense into her ear.

"I will leave with Uncle Sokka and Aunt Suki", he said firmly, "to live at the South Pole, where I belong. Goodbye forever, Mom."

He tried to turn away.

She grabbed his shoulder.

Kya would've just snuck onto Sokka's ship without a word and they would've been worried sick before a hawk'd arrived, carrying a very annoyed message by the Chief of the Southern Water Tribe.

Not Roku, though.

Roku announced his running away.

"You belong here, my little fish."

He took a step back.

"I don't! And don't call me that! You have Lu Ten now, right? You don't need me anymore - or Kya! You have a firebending son now!"

Roku had adored his little brother from the moment he first held him to the moment the baby had accidentily set Zuko on fire - after that, he had become very withdrawn.

It broke her heart more than a little that he thought he was so easily replaced - that he could be replaced at all.

"Roku ..."

He pulled away when she tried touching him again.

"I know the Council wants Dad to make him his heir. We're still good as spares, though, I heard them say that. I'm not a spare. Kya's not, either. So I will be living at the South Pole, where I can bend without being glared at by stupid old men!"

"And your sister will be coming with you?"

"She doesn't want to", he muttered and crossed his arms over his chest. "She doesn't like the cold. I do, though."

He didn't.

She knew that.

"Roku", she sighed and kneeled before him to look him in the eye better, "nobody can ever replace you. Your father won't make your brother his heir just because he's a firebender."

"But it makes sense, doesn't it? A waterbending Fire Lord doesn't."

He rubbed his eyes.

"Well, none of you will be Fire Lord any time soon. And if the time comes for your father to choose an heir, he will choose the one of you best suited. Until then, you are his heir by default."

Lu Ten pulled on her collar.

"Do you even want to be Fire Lord?"

"No. It's not about what I want to do, it's about what they don't want me to do."

Katara couldn't help but smile.

"You are very much your fahter's son, I see."


	2. ty lee and nobu

_2\. ty lee and nobu_

"Why can't we ever stay anywhere?", the little boy asked. "I wanna live here. I like it here. I have friends here, Mommy."

"You have friends all over the world, darling."

"Well, I like the friends here! I wanna stay!"

Ty Lee looked up from her packing and over to the child, who had been growing much too fast, these past few months, his cheeks not quite as chubby anymore, with a head full of hair, because he refused to let his father shave it.

"Nobu ..."

"Why don't we ever stay?", he asked again, quieter this time.

"Because this - travelling - was the way of your father's people, before they had to hide for a hundred years. And Dad dreamed of travelling the world all his life - he couldn't, of course, when he was your age. There weren't very many Air Nomads left, then, and they couldn't risk being discovered. He didn't actually leave home for the first time until he was in his twenties, which was when Avatar Aang found their settlement."

"'cause of the Fire Nation he couldn't leave?"

She bit her lip.

"Because of the war, yes."

"So now we have to forever travel?"

"We want to."

"I don't want to."

He crossed his arms over his chest.

"I'd love to tell you we could stay for a few more days, Nobu, but this time, we really can't. We're expected in the Fire Nation, by the Fire Lord, for the End of the War Anniversary Celebrations. Don't you miss Roku, Kya, Kimiko and Kyoshi, as well?", she asked.

"... maybe."

"We'll come back here, yes? I'm sure Dad wouldn't have mind that at all."

"Promise?"

"Of course."


	3. toph and gyatso

_3\. toph and gyatso_

"What do you have there?"

The boy stopped dead in his tracks, holding his breath, obviously contemplating what his next move should be, now that he had been caught, still on tip-toes as if that would make him invisible.

Toph turned around to him, hands on her hips.

"... nothin'?"

She lifted a brow.

"You don't sound convinced. Come, show me."

He trudged over hestitantly and held out something - furry.

It was furry when she touched it and not exactly tiny, with a wiggling, worm-like tail and - where those claws?

"Is that a badgermole?"

"Maybe."

"What is a badgermole doing in my kitchen?"

"I found him", Gyatso replied. "He was all alone, Mom! And I couldn't just leave him, 'cause he's still a baby and he wouldn't stop following me and ... and ... and I already gave him a name, so you can't make me bring him back! Also, Bumi's getting a bison, so I think I can have badgermole."

"Do you?", she sighed.

"Yeah."

She scratched the animal behind the ears.

"What's his name, then?"

"Wugou."

Which literally just meant dirt.

Fantastic.


	4. toph and bumi

_4\. toph and bumi _

His chubby fingers were wrapped around her wrist as he guided her hand over his face.

"This is my nose", the little boy said in a serious voice. "Daddy says, me and Yatso have your nose, 'coz it's much smaller than his."

Toph pinched the tip of his very adorable nose and he pulled away, giggling.

"Don't! Or I won't show you my face!"

"I'll behave myself", she promised.

Her fingers ghosted over his cheekbones - they had their father's cheeks, the twins, high and sharp - and were then pulled to his ear, which most definitly was his dad's, too.

"My ears are very big", he informed. "Auntie 'Tara says I'll grow into them, but Uncle Sokka says Daddy never did."

She bit back a grin.

Pulled his earlope a little.

"I like your Daddy's ears. And yours. Very much."

"I like them, too."

He took one of her fingers and let it trace his eye.

"My eyes are grey, like Dad's. He says grey is like the noise that stones make when you rub them together.

She'd heard that metaphor before - she'd heard all those descriptions before, because she asked Aang maybe a little too often to describe the children to her, but it was endearing of Bumi to try and let her see his face.

The day before, he'd covered himself in dirt to make her see him.

She much preferred this, because it wouldn't end with her having to give him a bath again.

"These are my eyebrows. I asked Daddy why he didn't shave them off and why he's allowed to have a beard but no head-hair and he didn't have an answer."

She wrapped both arms around him and kissed his cheek.


	5. toph and vayu

_5\. toph and vayu_

"Mom?"

"Hm?"

"How do you make a girl like you?"

She furrowed her brow.

He shifted from one foot to the other and startet fiddling with his glasses, like he always did when he was starting to get nervous and didn't quite know what to do with himself in general, but his hands in particular.

"Why do you ask?"

"No reason."

"Alright. Well, you don't make a girl like you."

His hands stilled.

"But ... what if you really like her?"

"Then you find out if she likes you, too. But you don't make her anything. You can't. That's just not how feelings work, buddy."

He stepped closer.

"How do I find out if she likes me, then?"

"You?"

"Someone. Anyone. Not me, though."

He chuckled awkwardly.

She smiled.

"You could ask her."

"But what if she doesn't like m- you back? Then it's gonna be super weird, right?"

"Maybe. Maybe not. Kanna's Sokka's daughter, so it will probably be weird and awkward for awhile. That's just the way things are with them. Very awkward when he finally found out I had a crush on him during the war."

"Nobody's talking about Kanna!"

"Sure."

"Yeah!"

"You know I can feel you lying, right?"

"I'm no- Wait. You had a crush on Uncle Sokka?"


	6. katara and lu ten

_6\. katara and lu ten_

Lu Ten sat on the sleigh, bundled up and still shivering, with both arms wrapped tightly around a wiggling polar bear pup as the other kids ran around, shrieking and laughing and throwing snow at eachother.

He looked on with a sour look on his face.

He didn't look up when his mother sat down next to him.

"Don't you wanna go play with the others?", she asked.

"I'm cold."

"Well, we are at the South Pole."

"Are we?", he grumbled. "I hadn't noticed."

Katara smiled.

"You could warm up, playing with the others, you know? Instead of squeezing poor Akkoh so hard, I mean", she suggested.

"Kanna shoved snow down my coat."

"I see."

"Vayu laughed."

"So, you're sulking."

His head jerked up and when she looked down at him, his oh so pale, thin face had become a determined mask, half hidden behind the dog trying to break free.

Adorable.

"Plotting my revenge, mother!"


	7. mai and shun

_7\. mai and shun_

He was a very lively child.

Always smiling, always running circles around his sister and parents, fidgeting in his chair at school and beneath her hands when she combed his hair, and her mother had reprimanded him more than once for knocking over vases and statues and people in his haste to cross a room, but she could never find it in herself to do so, as well.

She just couldn't.

She didn't want him to ever stop running and grinning and wearing his feelings on his sleeve, because he was everything she had been never allowed to be and he was beautiful just the way he was.

He wouldn't ever become a politician like his father still hoped he some day would be - following in the old man's footsteps and all that, he liked to say, smiling the same way their little boy did, and then take their daughter to work, because she was so much more interested in and so much more suited for that kind of life.

Her son pulled on her sleeve.

She looked down.

His eyes twinkled and his cheeks were flushed and he wouldn't stand still, she didn't think he could.

"Come play with me?", he asked with a wide smile.

"Of course, Shun."

He grabbed her hand and pulled her with him.


	8. suki and piandao

_8\. suki and piandao_

"Look."

She didn't lift her head immediatly.

"Mommy, look."

"Dao-"

"But Mommy!"

Suki sighed and put down the letter she had been reading to gaze at her son, her youngest child, who usually was such a calm child - in comparison to his sisters, at least, who both seemed to have inherited their fathers unending enthusiam, which was endearing, but also rather tiring - was now bouncing in his spot next to her chair.

"What is it, Piandao? Mommy is very busy right now."

She brushed a strand of hair out of his big, blue eyes.

"Weren't you playing with your sisters?"

"I d'scovered somethin'", he replied. "Watch."

He put a pebble on one of the few free spots of her desk, then took a step back.

"What-"

"Watch, Mommy!"

And she did, as he fell into a sloppy bending stance before moving his hand and sending the pebble flying across the room.

Suki blinked.

"You're bending", she finally said.

"Yeah!"

"Earthbending."

"Yeah!"

She grabbed him to pulled him onto her lap and he grinned the widest grin and cuddled against her.

"Cool, huh? When's Daddy coming home? Can we write Auntie Toph? She can show me more stuff. Can we visit them again, soon, so I can show Yatso I can bend earth, too, like him? I have to show Gramps and Gran-Gran and Granpakku, too!"

"Soon, kiddo."

She chouldn't help but think that he'd leave their home some day, permanently, which she shouldn't be thinking about, because he was five years old and these were great news and so she kissed him and put him down again.

"Come on, let's show your sisters first."


	9. toph and kuzon

_9\. toph and kuzon_

"Mom?"

His hand was on her shoulder and his voice incredibly quiet, probably so he wouldn't wake his father as well, who still breathed evenly, his arm wrapped tightly around her waist.

She lifted a hand and rubbed her eyes.

"Mom."

"What is it, Kuzon?", she mumbled into her pillow, still barely awake, and the boy, who had been ten years old for about two months now, climbed into bed with them like his older brothers and sister refused to do since they were seven.

"I have been thinking", he replied.

Kuzon turned his head so that their noses touched.

"You should be asleep", she said and touched his cheek, then brushed a strand of soft, wavy hair behind his big ear. "Not thinking."

"Well, I was, but I woke up, because I had to pee. And then I was thinking."

"About what?"

"About the war. I'm almost as old as you and Dad were now. I don't think I'd want to fight anybody."

"Nobody wants to fight a war, Kuzon."

"But you like fighting."

"In a ring. Where there are rules and people enforcing those rules. Where I'm safe and my component is, too. A competition like that, the Earth Rumble, is not in any way comparable to a battle field."

She'd had to learn that the hard way.

She was glad none of her children would ever have to.

"I don't like fighting", he mused.

"I know. That's fine, too."

"Why were you fighting, if you don't like it?"

"Well, your Dad, your aunts and uncles, they had no real choice. I did, I guess, but ... I wasn't fully aware of what I was getting myself into until it was ... well, not really to late, I could have left at any time, I guess, but ... I wouldn't. Because I couldn't just leave my friends, y'know?"

"I guess ... But that must've been scary ..."

"Very, at times. But it's over now. Over and done with, forever."

Hopefully.

She'd rather dangle from that airship again, slipping out of Sokka's grip, than see her children go to war.

Kuzon snuggled closer.

Aang's grip on her loosened a little.


	10. toph and lao

_10\. toph and lao_

"Why's my name Lao?", he asked, legs dangling, heels hitting the pillar she'd put him on.

His voice was muffled by the shirt still stuck on his head - or his ears, rather, because of course all of her children had inherited their father's ridiculously big ears, of course -, but he didn't seem particularly bothered by this fact.

This wasn't the first time this happened, after all.

Toph pulled on the shirt.

"It was your grandfather's name. He died a few days before you were born."

"Oh. Were you very sad?"

She paused for a moment.

"I was. It was a very confusing time, being sad about him dying and happy about you being born. Your dad suggested naming you in his honor and I liked that idea very much."

She finally managed to yank the shirt over his ears.

Smiled.

"D'you think he would've liked me?"

"I do. He hoped you'd be a girl, but I don't think he would've been bothered at all by another grandson. He just would've been happy to get to meet you, because it wasn't certain if he'd get to. And then ..."

She sighed.

"He didn't. Now."

She lifted him from the pillar and let it shrink into the ground again.

"We need to get going."

He slipped his hand into hers.

"I've got more questions."

"Ask away."


End file.
